Anthony Joseph 'Tony' Bookallil was a neurosurgeon at Newcastle, New South Wales. He studied medicine at Sydney University, after completing a pharmacy degree, graduating with honours in 1967. He then completed two years residency at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, before heading to England, where he gained his FRCS and, in 1973, commenced on his neurosurgery training at Oxford. At about the same time, it was decided that there was a need for a neurosurgery service in Newcastle. Advice as to a suitable candidate was sought, and Richard Gye suggested Tony. Tony was duly recruited and arrived in Newcastle in 1975, fresh from his training, where he was faced with the task of setting up a new specialty with no trained ward or theatre staff, no infrastructure, and the prospect of being almost constantly on call for an indefinite period of time (this lasted for 13 years, until a second neurosurgeon arrived in 1988). Luckily for the population of Newcastle, they had been blessed with a man with an enormously strong constitution, who could be up all night dealing with a head injury, and then come home, wake his children and take them to their swimming lessons. At that time the concept of safe working hours was still many years off. Over 25 years he performed an estimated 6,000 operations, including back operations, disc removals, spina bifida corrections, brain tumour resections and head injury repairs. Not content with a clinical workload far greater than any of his colleagues, Tony also became very involved in hospital life, serving in many positions on the medical staff council and division of surgery, including stints as chair of both. He was also involved with the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, being on the organising committee for an extremely successful World Congress of Neurosurgery in Sydney in 2001. Tony had an unswerving commitment to public medicine that continued well beyond his attempted retirement in 2002. After the best-attended retirement dinner that Newcastle had seen, he still came back whenever he was asked, to fill gaps in both the clinical roster and in administration. Outside medicine, Tony's great loves were his family and his music. He was involved with choral singing in Newcastle and was president of the Newcastle Musica Viva committee. In his retirement he studied music at the University of Newcastle. Tony died on 21 February 2013, aged 72, after a short illness. He was survived by his wife, Gay, children Marianne, Tom and Anthony, and his four grandchildren. His funeral was at Newcastle's Sacred Heart Cathedral, where he had been a member of the choir. As well as family, friends and colleagues, the service was notable for the large number of his patients who came to pay their respects. He left behind a very grateful city.